The "Middle East and Terrorism" Blog was created in order to supply information about the implication of Arab countries and Iran in terrorism all over the world. Most of the articles in the blog are the result of objective scientific research or articles written by senior journalists.

From the Ethics of the Fathers: "He [Rabbi Tarfon] used to say, it is not incumbent upon you to complete the task, but you are not exempt from undertaking it."

Saturday, February 19, 2011

Multiculturalism isn’t working out in Europe, at least for the Europeans.

One after another, leaders of the major powers have expressed misgivings over multiculturalism. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, compelled by the million-selling “Germany Does Away With Itself,” started the denunciations in October by declaring that multiculturalism has “failed, utterly failed.” Multiculturalism is a “failure,” concurred French President Nicolas Sarkozy last week. “We have been too concerned about the identity of the personwho wasarriving and not enough about the identity of the country that was receiving him,” he explained on a nationally-televised interview. Former prime ministers of Spain and Australia have issued essentially the same verdict.

The most forceful denunciation of multiculturalism from a European leader came from British Prime Minister David Cameron, who also calls it a “failure.” “We will not defeat terrorism simply by the action we take outside our borders,” he acknowledged at a Munich security conference earlier this month. “Europe needs to wake up to what is happening in our own countries.”

Indeed, alarm bells have included London’s July 7, 2005 subway attacks that killed 56, the assassination of Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, and honor killings in such unlikely locales as Denmark and Germany. But after each homegrown atrocity Europe’s leaders kept hitting snooze. Only recently has expressing alarm at the Islamization of Europe even been considered within the bounds of legitimate political discourse. And still beyond the pale seems a discussion of what native-born Europeans, rather than the continent’s newer arrivals, are doing to undermine the survival of their civilization.

Cameron emphasizes the importance of transforming indigenous Muslims into Englishmen, or, in the more inclusive vernacular, Brits. He doesn’t quite grasp how Muslims have already transformed England into a place more resembling their mother countries. The adopted homeland can change the immigrant population through assimilation. Last-call soccer hooligan Arabs with cockney accents and Oxford-educated Muslim gentlemen attest that newcomers are capable of absorbing the best and worst of English culture. But the homeland can be changed by the immigrant population, too. Women wearing masks, arranged marriages, Sharia law separate from the law, and the de facto suppression of speech are a few of the ways in which European cities differ from themselves just a generation ago.

But before Muslims changed Europe, Europeans did.

European women stopped having babies. The birthrate is below replacement level in Sarkozy’s France (2.01 children per woman), Cameron’s England (1.95 for England and Wales) and Merkel’s Germany (1.38 children), which boasts its fewest number of births per woman since right after the Second World War.

The homelands of Adam Smith and Frederic Bastiat now regard social welfare as official state ideology. The least educated and skilled part of the workforce in Britain, France, and Germany can count on generous incomes because of the social safety net that punishes success and rewards failure. Charles Martel fought Muslims to keep them from taking over Europe. His progeny offer them the dole to entice them inside.

Leading European states have trashed their national identities. In the wake of the destructive nationalism of the 20th century, and the advent of the European Union, Europeans increasingly regard themselves as Europeans rather than Frenchmen, Germans, or Englishmen. Without currency, religion, a shared history, or even a language to bind, these nations have become unbound. Even as benign a symbol as the Cross of St. George, the national flag of England, is dubbed a banner of racism. Given that European nations are embarrassed to stand for what nations traditionally stand for, e.g., religious or ethnic identity, is it any wonder that they are undergoing such a horrible identity crisis?

Cameron’s plan for assimilation includes a common curriculum for students, newcomers learning the English language, and a ban on hate-filled preachers and organizations. This imposes obligations on the immigrant. What about the responsibilities of the larger society? A Europe unwilling to breed, unwilling to stop rewarding idleness through government give-outs, unwilling to curb immigration from societies unlike their own, and unwilling to take pride in their own cultures will become a Europe unlike the Europe we have known.

“Under the doctrine of state multiculturalism, we have encouraged different cultures to live separate lives, apart from each other and apart from the mainstream,” remarked Cameron. “We’ve failed to provide a vision of society to which they feel they want to belong. We’ve even tolerated these segregated communities behaving in ways that run completely counter to our values.”

Europe’s values have increasingly come to mean a social welfare state, porous borders, reproductive suppression, and an internationalism that regards expressions of national pride as uncouth if not bigoted. If Europeans wish to abolish the Muslim Bantustans within their midst, it is their own values they may want to first rethink.

Original URL: http://frontpagemag.com/2011/02/18/how-multiculturalism-killed-europe/

Daniel J. Flynn is the author ofA Conservative History of the American Left (Crown Forum, 2008), Intellectual Morons (Crown Forum, 2004), and Why the Left Hates America (Prima Forum, 2002). He has appeared on Fox News, MSNBC, CNN, Sky News, PBS, CSPAN, and other broadcast networks. He writes a Monday column for Human Events and blogs at www.flynnfiles.com.

Hundreds of thousands of Egyptians returned to Tahrir Square Friday for a victory celebration, one week after a broad-based, peaceful revolt ended President Hosni Mubarak's 30-year-rein.

Amid a festive atmosphere that featured a marching band and chants of unity were some indications of concern.

Yusuf al-Qaradawi, an influential Muslim Brotherhood theologian, addressed the crowd. While his remarks were largely devoid of Brotherhood rhetoric, his prominent role in the event and the crowd generated "was also a reminder that political Islam is likely to play a larger role in Egypt than it has for decades," the Christian Science Monitor reports.

He called for freedom for thousands of political prisoners in Egyptian jails and the end of the country's blockade against the Hamas government in Gaza.

Qaradawi made a point of saying he was speaking to all Egyptians, including Coptic Christians. "The revolution," he said, "is not over" and he warned "infiltrators" who may try to sabotage Egyptian unity and hijack the revolution.

Ironically, reports indicate that some of that happened on the very stage from which Qaradawi spoke. Wael Ghonim, the young Google executive credited with helping ignite the popular uprising, was blocked from getting on stage by Qaradawi's guards. According to a news report, "Ghonim left the square with his face hidden by an Egyptian flag."

As the IPT reported Thursday, there are increasing signs that the Muslim Brotherhood, which deliberately maintained a low profile during the three-week street protests, is flexing its muscles as Egypt tries to build a new government. It is well represented on a committee charged with recommending changes the country's constitution and has announced plans to form a political party to run for parliamentary seats.

Despite being banned under Mubarak, 88 Brotherhood-affiliated people were elected to the parliament in 2005. The body has 444 members.

Original URL: http://www.investigativeproject.org/2611/qaradawi-holds-court-in-cairo

Right on cue, a Princeton Seminary professor recently suggested for the Huffington Post that the revolution in Egypt was actually a time for pondering how American “hegemony” might be overthrown throughout the Middle East. He also lamented how many fellow left-wingers are PEPS, i.e. “Progressive Except on Israel.”

The revolts in Egypt and Tunisia are special challenges to the Religious Left. For much of 30 years it has said nearly nothing about human rights abuses in the Arab world, not even under pro-Western regimes. To do so would distract from exclusive focus on Israel as the primary regional villain. Critique of Arab regimes also might risk critically examining political Islam, especially Sharia, which the Religious Left emphatically wants to avoid. Such examination might impair its version of interfaith dialogue. And it would distract from focus on the American Christian Right as the primary theocratic threat to global peace and justice.

Accordingly, Princeton theologian Mark Lewis Taylor was impatient with questions about whether Islam can generate an Enlightenment transition into modern democracy. He was far more interested in the “Christian Question,” which is: “Can Christians, especially in the U.S., discern the extent to which their own nation is an economically and militarily exploitative power in the Middle East/West Asia, and then voice and organize as part of a counter-power to that U.S. hegemony?”

Presumably Professor Taylor does not confine America’s hegemonic exploitation just to the Mid-East but was focusing on America’s crimes in that region in reaction to the latest Egypt events. He complained that American celebrants of the Egyptian revolt were failing to “acknowledge the politics of abuse the U.S. has long tolerated in Egypt for its interest in controlling oil prices and maintaining alliance with Israel.” He particularly faulted Egypt under Mubarak for “servicing both U.S. politics of oil price control and alliance with Israel.”

It’s not clear why Taylor tagged Mubarak’s Egypt, which is not a major oil producer, as an agent for suppressing America’s oil bill. Almost certainly Taylor is more disturbed by Egypt’s role as an “ally” with Israel, or more factually, not being an open belligerent. He was also troubled by Egypt’s ostensible fraternity with the “transnational elites” that similarly exploit “Main Street” USA as part of “U.S. neocolonialism.” Taylor forlornly wondered whether U.S. Christians would “find their voice to name this U.S. imperialism?”

Professor Taylor is not satisfied with just angry words. He wanted enlightened U.S. Christians, i.e. mainly the Religious Left, to “act in conjunction with Egyptian and Arab movements against U.S. imperialism, in ways both subtle and dramatic.” Will American Christians confront decades of America’s “vicious neocolonialism?” Taylor was skeptical. After all, America has its own sordid domestic past of “overlooking the freedom struggle that women, labor and racially disparaged groups.”

Predictably, Taylor was deeply concerned that the U.S. is a “homeland” to “large numbers of Christian Zionists and American Christian theocrats,” who are not just “patriots” but also suppliers of “material aid” to Israel. These mindless Christian supporters of Israel facilitate the “occupation, ‘apartheid’ wall, demolition of homes,” and “siege” of Gaza. And Taylor was frustrated that the American left is not sufficiently condemning Christian Zionists because of provoking charges of “anti-Semitism.” They are afraid of the “Israel Lobby” and the inevitable “death threats” that descend on Israel’s critics. Too many intimidated Leftists are PEPs, i.e. “Progressive Except on Palestine.”

Taylor found encouragement from the left-leaning, Swiss-based World Alliance of Reformed Churches’ “Liberation Theology” influenced “Accra Confession,” which he rejoiced “bore witness against the ravages of Western imperialism.” He was also heartened by groups like Jim Wallis’ Sojourners and Michael Lerner’s Tikkun, which have supported the Egyptian revolt while understanding the sinister dimensions of U.S. imperialism. “From these seeds some redress of the ‘Christian Question’ may come,” Taylor hopefully concluded his jeremiad against the American Empire.

No doubt to Taylor’s delight, last week Jim Wallis dispatched “A Letter to Young Egyptian Protesters, From a Veteran U.S. Activist.” He assumed he had much to teach! Wallis’ experience during the Vietnam protest years of helping to enthrone Southeast Asian communist tyrannies perhaps can be recalled. So too can his 1980’s belligerency on behalf of Central American totalitarian movements.

“Remember, the United States was not talking about democracy in Egypt, not advocating it, not saying a transition is necessary and urgent, UNTIL you risked your security, safety, and lives for the sake of democracy,” Wallis sanctimoniously told “Egyptians,” i.e. mainly his U.S. leftist blog readers. In truth, Wallis himself was not previously talking about “democracy” for Egypt or other nations in the Middle East very much either. “My government, which still calls itself the beacon of freedom, has sacrificed democracy in your region of the world (and many other places) for American ‘interests,’” Wallis announced. “And our foreign policy around the globe has put our interests before our principles. But they are not really the interests of the American people, but of oil companies, big banks and corporations, and rich and powerful people.” Wallis warned ostensible young Egyptians not to listen to hypocritical U.S. policymakers but, by implication,” to listen instead to “veteran” activists like himself.

It’s doubtful that many Egyptian protesters were actively re-tweeting Jim Wallis’ broadcasts. And we can hope and pray that more discerning Egyptians will not embrace the anti-American and anti-Israel ideology that the U.S. Religious Left, at least as represented by Wallis and Professor Taylor, so eagerly tout. A successful Egypt will look to building its own democratic institutions, not succumb to the anti-American and anti-Israel conspiracy theories that the Egyptian media, even when controlled by Mubarak, have long peddled.

Original URL: http://frontpagemag.com/2011/02/18/progressive-except-on-israel/?utm_source=FrontPage+Magazine&utm_campaign=773bdb9f70-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email

Even if the passage of two Iranian warships through the Suez Canal was still uncertain, it was a week that rattled Israelis’ nerves.

It began on Sunday with a stern lecture by New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman that got considerable play in the Israeli media. “For anyone who spent time in Tahrir Square these last three weeks,” he wrote, “one thing was very obvious: Israel was not part of this story at all. This was about Egypt and about the longing of Egyptians for the most basic human rights….”

And because Israel, in Friedman’s view, failed to enthuse over nascent Egyptian democracy and instead feared the fall of the nonbelligerent Mubarak government, Friedman found himself “more worried today about Israel’s future than I have ever been, because I think that at time of great change in this region—and we have just seen the beginnings of it—Israel today has the most out-of-touch, in-bred, unimaginative and cliché-driven cabinet it has ever had.”

Friedman, for his part, continued to enthuse in his Tuesday dispatch, writing that “Egypt has now been awakened by its youth in a unique way—not to fight Israel, or America, but in a quest for personal empowerment, dignity and freedom.”

One doesn’t know if his ardor has been cooled by the fate of his journalistic colleague Lara Logan, brutally assaulted in Tahrir Square by an anti-Mubarak mob shouting “Jew! Jew!” Material on the anti-Semitism of the “democracy protesters” had already been available, though; it clearly made little or no impression on Friedman.

Israelis, for their part, could be impressed by USA Today’s report on Wednesday that “top leaders of the protest movement that toppled the regime of Hosni Mubarak” are calling, among other things, “to cut offnatural gasshipments to Israel.” Those shipments are supposed to be guaranteed by the 1979 Israeli-Egyptian Peace Treaty. While flouting many other provisions of the treaty, the Mubarak government upheld that particular provision for thirty years.

But let’s not get picayune about these “youth…in a quest for personal empowerment, dignity and freedom.”

And if Israelis turned their eyes from their neighbor to the southwest to their neighbor to the north, Lebanon, the picture was also something less than inspiring. On Wednesday Hassan Nasrallah, head of the Hezbollah terror organization, threatened in a ceremony in Beirut to take over the Galilee in the event of another war with Israel.

“I’m telling the Zionist commanders and generals,” he said, “wherever you go, anywhere in the world and at any time, you always need to look out, because Imad Mugniyeh’s blood has not been spilled in vain”—referring to the terror master assassinated by Israel in Damascus in 2008.

Israelis can remember another “Arab spring” not long ago—in Beirut in 2005. Then too democracy protesters—many of them undoubtedly authentic—thronged the streets and succeeded in getting Hezbollah’s ally Syria to withdraw its army from Lebanon. But today Lebanon is very much in the grip of Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran, and tens of thousands of Hezbollah missiles cover every inch of Israel.

One does not have to be Israeli—just intelligently sympathetic—to understand that such experiences dispose Israelis to caution about purported transformations in the Middle East. Intelligently sympathetic, and a good deal less arrogant than Thomas Friedman.

And what about Israel’s neighbor to the east, Jordan—with which, like Egypt, it signed a peace treaty, this one in 1994?

Mjali had been appointed by King Abdullah a week earlier “in a shakeup,” the Jerusalem Postnoted in a stinging editorial, “geared to stem protests inspired by Egypt’s turmoil” and “facilitate greater democratic freedoms.” But

the fact that Mjali, who served as Daqamseh’s attorney during his trial, could be appointed minister of justice in the first place raises gave questions…. It would have been no great surprise that he’d be the blusterous chief speaker at a demonstration [pictured here] for Daqamseh’s release.

For now Jordanian officials have told Israel that there are no plans to free Daqamseh—even though “Jordan’s powerful Islamist movement and the country’s 14 trade unions, comprising over 200,000 members, relentlessly campaign for [his] release.”

Thomas Friedman, of course, does not live in a country surrounded by neighbors where journalists are beaten and sexually abused by a mob of “democracy supporters,” where a terror potentate threatens invasion and conquest, or where much of the population is enamored of a mass child-murderer. How much easier to visit the Middle East for a jaunt, hobnobbing with the Facebook and Twitter-savvy youth in Tahrir Square, and direct one’s bile at Israel.

At least Thomas Friedman fits in.

Original URL: http://frontpagemag.com/2011/02/18/thomas-friedman-at-home-in-a-middle-eastern-mob/?utm_source=FrontPage+Magazine&utm_campaign=773bdb9f70-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email

February marked the twelfth anniversary of Venezuela's Bolivarian Revolution: President Hugo Chavez took his first oath of office in 1999. Celebrations for the anniversary were organized in different countries, among them Iran. On this occasion, the Venezuelan Ambassador to Teheran, David Velasquez, took the opportunity to hail the Iranian-Venezuelan relationship, especially regarding "Imperialism".

On the day of this event, Velasquez also stated that Venezuela stopped selling gasoline to Iran; he said the country had become self-sufficient in fuel production thanks to the expansion of its petrochemical capacities. After signing a deal with Iran in 2009, Venezuela had been shipping 20,000 bpd of gasoline to Teheran despite international sanctions that blocked the import of pump-ready fuel. The sanctions, which became effective in mid 2010, aimed at hitting Teheran's need for importing refined fuel due to a lack of oil refineries..

According to The Institute for War and Peace Reporting, for the last five months, Iranian officials have been saying the country is no longer reliant on fuel imports "thanks to a development program launched two years ago to increase production and thereby cushion the country against a possible international ban on fuel sales"[1]. During the Friday sermon on February 4, Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, announced that the country would no longer need to import fuel as of February 11, the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and that Iran would even be able to export petrol.[2]

After the inauguration of an expansion to an existing facility[3], Iran claims to have the largest oil refinery in the Middle East. Reuters, however, published interviews with traders saying that even though the Iranians "have boosted their production through using their petrochemical plants, they still are short of gasoline. The situation is getting very tight for them because of the sanctions, but they are still managing to import fuel."[4] The Venezuelan paper El Universal reported that the state-run Venezuelan oil company delivered two shipments of fuel to Iran in February.

From the press:

Venezuelans Celebrate Bolivarian Revolution in Tehran

Venezuelan Ambassador Hails Tehran-Caracas Relationship

Venezuelan Ambassador: Teheran and Caracas Should Join Forces Against Imperialism

Venezuelan Ambassador: Iran No Longer Needs Venezuelan Fuel

Venezuela Sells Fuel to Iran Despite International Sanctions

February 7, 2011

Venezuelans Celebrate Bolivarian Revolution in Tehran

The officials and staff of the Venezuelan embassy in Tehran held a celebration in Tehran's Goftogou Park […] to commemorate the 12th anniversary of the Bolivarian Revolution and the Venezuela's Day of National Dignity. The ceremony was held in front of Simon Bolivar's bronze statue, which stands in the center of the Goftogou Park. Simon Bolivar (1783-1830), also called the Liberator, was a political leader who, when many parts of South America were ruled by Spain, fought against the Spanish army and won independence for Venezuela, Peru, Bolivia, Colombia, and Ecuador.

Representatives from the Iranian Foreign Ministry and a number of ambassadors and embassy staff and officials from the Cuban, Ecuadorian, Nicaraguan, Peruvian, Bolivian, and Colombian embassies in Tehran also attended the ceremony. At the beginning of the ceremony, the attendees sang the Venezuela's national anthem, and the Venezuelan Ambassador to Iran, David Velasquez, laid a wreath at the Bolivar's statue. Afterwards, the ambassador made a short speech, paying tribute to the Liberator and recounting the history of the Bolivarian Revolution.

Venezuelan Ambassador Hails Tehran-Caracas Relationship

Velasquez talked about the achievements made during the presidency of Hugo Chavez, and criticized the "imperialists" for taking hostile actions and stances against the Venezuelan popular revolution.

He also enumerated the principles of the Bolivarian Revolution, which are promotion of popular democracy and economic independence, equitable distribution of revenues, and an end to political corruption. Elsewhere in his remarks, Velasquez hailed Tehran-Caracas relationship as friendly and close and said Iran and Venezuela are in the same front against the Western imperialism. […] Tehran Times (Iran)

February 6, 2011

Venezuelan Ambassador: Teheran and Caracas Should Join Forces Against Imperialism

Venezuelan Ambassador to Tehran David Velasquez highlighted the hostile policies practiced and pursued ever since the victory of the Bolivarian Revolution against Caracas by world imperialism, and asked Iran and Venezuela to join forces in the confrontation against imperialism.

"To fight against imperialism's violence and apartheid against our nations and to win this fight, we need the assistance of the regional countries as well as Iran," Velasquez said, addressing a ceremony here in Tehran today on the occasion of the 12th anniversary of Venezuela's Bolivarian Revolution, which saw Hugo Chavez assume presidency of the Caribbean nation. He stated that his country has experienced numerous problems and faced constant threats by imperialism throughout the last twelve years.

Also during the ceremony, the Caretaker of the Iranian Foreign Ministry's First Office for South American Affairs, Mehdi Faqih, lauded the growing ties between Iran and Venezuela; he said, "The two countries are surely in the same front in the campaign against the world arrogance, and will continue this fight." […] Fars News Agency (Iran)

February 6, 2011

Venezuelan Ambassador: Iran No Longer Needs Venezuelan Fuel

The Venezuelan ambassador to Tehran says that since Iran has attained self-sufficiency in gas production, Caracas has stopped exporting gasoline to it "Earlier last year Iranian officials informed us that 'we (Iran) have achieved self-sufficiency and no longer need to import gasoline," David Velasquez said on Sunday [February 6].

Velasquez added that Venezuela's Oil Minister, Rafael Ramirez, issued a formal statement about halting gasoline export to Iran […]. Ramirez said at the Friday press conference that Iran "has solved its problem" and does not currently need fuel. The Venezuelan oil minister added that cuts in subsidies have allowed Iran to bring down domestic consumption, and that Iran has also expanded "petrochemical capacities," […]

During a visit to Iran in September 2009, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced that his country would provide Tehran with 20,000 barrels of gasoline per day. On Saturday [February 5], Iran inaugurated new gasoline production projects in the Shazand oil refinery in Arak.

Iranian Oil Ministry Massoud Mirkazemi said that in the first phase, the Shazand refinery would produce 2.5 million liters gasoline, and by the end of the year, the amount would reach 4 million liters. Mirkazemi added that by July, 12 million liters of Euro-5 standard-compliant gasoline would be added to the country's gasoline production capacity.

The Euro-5 is one of the European emission standards which define the acceptable limits for exhaust-emissions of automobiles. These emission standards are defined in a series of European Union directives which stage the progressive introduction of increasingly stringent standards. Press TV (Iran)

January 31, 2011

Venezuela Sells Fuel to Iran Despite International Sanctions

State-run oil company Petróleos de Venezuela (Pdvsa) is delivering two shipments of fuel to Iran, sources of the oil sector said. The Venezuelan firm is therefore supplying fuel to the Islamic Republic of Iran despite international sanctions led by the United States. The shipments will be delivered in February […].

"It is no surprise at all," one trader said. "Countries such as Venezuela or China do not care much about sanctions.". Major oil companies have halted business with Tehran, which depends on fuel imports because it lacks refining capacity. El Universal (Venezuela)

Palestinian President Abbas has reached the same conclusion as his predecessor, Yasser Arafat -- that he will not get all of what he wants from Israel at the negotiating table; also the reason he opposes a third intifada [uprising] against Israel -- he has instead decided to take the battle to the international arena.

His Prime Minister, Salam Fayyad, is basically hoping that by September, the plan's deadline, the Palestinians will have created new facts on the ground that will convince the US and the Europeans to support their unilateral declaration of statehood.

To achieve their goal, Abbas and Fayyad have chosen to embarrass and isolate Israel through a series of resolutions. Abbas's Palestinian Authority leadership in the West Bank and he have decided to launch a different kind of an uprising - -a diplomatic one, designed to isolate Israel in the international arena and force it to submit to all Palestinian demands.

First, they are seeking to convince many countries to back the Palestinian Authority's efforts to press war crime charges against Israeli political and military leaders.

Second, the Palestinian Authority is now making huge efforts to have the United Nations Security Council issue a resolution condemning settlements as illegal.

Third, Abbas and Fayyad have been working hard to persuade many countries to declare their recognition of an independent Palestinian state on the 1967 lines, with east Jerusalem as its capital. Their efforts have so far been successful in South America, where several countries, including Brazil, have complied.

It is not clear at this stage how Israel, or the US, would react to the Palestinians' planned unilateralism. Israel could always argue that unilateral steps are a violation of the Oslo Accords with the PLO – a move that could pave the way for the abrogation of the agreement. In such an event, Israel would be free to reciprocate with its own unilateral measures, including annexing parts of the West Bank.

Abbas and Fayyad hope that in the next few months, they will be able to win enough support for it. These measures coincide with Fayyad's two-year plan to establish state institutions.

Israel and the US should already now state their position regarding this issue, and explain how they intend to respond.

When Arafat reached the conclusion that he would never get what he wanted from Israel through negotiations, he resorted to violence, unleashing the "second intifada" in September 2000.

His successor, Mahmoud Abbas, has since learned from the mistakes of the past. Abbas knows that the violence has been counterproductive and has caused the Palestinians huge damage.

Abbas has therefore chosen a different approach to achieve his goals. Abbas's diplomatic intifada, or offensive, is ultimately aimed at circumventing the Oslo Accords by winning the international community's recognition of an independent Palestinian state on the 1967 lines.

The Palestinian Authority needs to watch its steps carefully and consider the consequences of its actions. Some Palestinians have already expressed concern that the policies of Abbas and Fayyad could have a boomerang effect on their constituents.

Those who think that a Palestinian state could be established without negotiations with Israel are either naïve or have no idea what they are talking about. Why would any country ever again sign any international agreement if it can so easily be abrogated?

Although it is true that the peace talks are currently facing a crisis, it would still be better to wait than embark on unilateral steps that would only further complicate the situation.

Obscure to most Americans, but vitally important to the American military, the tiny island nation of Bahrain has become the latest Middle Eastern country to be caught in the throes of destabilizing unrest. At least four Bahraini protesters are now dead from the military’s swift response to Thursday’s tumultuous political demonstrations. As with most imperiled states in the region, the political reality of Bahrain is extremely complicated, and the matter of which faction is worthy of support — the populace or the authoritarian government — is no simple question. In many ways, Bahrain is one of the best examples of the Mideast democracy paradox; one that, if lost to the winds of fortune, would be devastating for regional stability, and probably the people of Bahrain as well.

A coveted Archipelago, Bahrain has a long history of domination by world powers. This includes the Persians, the Arabs, the Ottomans, and to some extent, the British. For most of the modern area, Bahrain has been an Islamic country, with roughly 70% of the population identifying as Shia Muslims, and 30%, Sunni. For the last decade, Bahrain had been a parliamentary monarchy, whose al-Khalifa dynasty, which is Sunni, has ruled for more than 200 years.

The current monarch, King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, has been a devoted ally to the U.S. and to its strategic interests in Middle East, especially with respect to Iran. In turn, the U.S. has been a military aegis for the tiny Persian Gulf nation, installing the home base of the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet in Jaffair, and actively preventing Iranian influence in the country and elsewhere in the region. This is important, as the Shia Iranian theocracy has often expressed kinship with the Bahraini Shia population, whom the minority-Sunnis frequently accuse of being clients of the Islamic Republic (although the Shiites adamantly deny this is the case). The American Fifth Fleet monitors important strategic waterways in the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean, the Suez Canal, the Strait of Hormuz, and others. It also oversees operations from Afghanistan and Iraq from the Bahraini base.

What is also important about Bahrain, is that the presiding monarchy would be supportive of military or other action against Iran, and, in fact, suggested as much to the U.S., according to a diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks. Neighboring Saudi Arabia, also a Sunni monarchy, is likewise supportive of this eventuality, and the two countries have maintained extremely close ties. In enabling the U.S. to monitor the area for malignant forces, such the Iranian Navy and piracy, the Bahrain-U.S.-Saudi trifecta, is a cornerstone of peace in the region.

But the significance of Bahrain is not merely strategic. Bahrain is a sliver of modernity in the Muslim world. It is a relatively open, prosperous society, and is a favored retreat for military personnel and Saudi playboys for this very reason. The country is home to bars and resorts, for instance, and it is the hub of the regional banking system, particularly for Saudi Arabia. Bahrain provides free or low-cost health care, and both its standard of living and literacy rate are high. In 2010, the government reported its unemployment rate was enviously below 4%. After assuming power, King Hamad was favorable to the country’s women’s right movement, granting women the right to vote and to hold political office.

One wonders, then, why there would be an anti-government uprising in Bahrain in the first place. Generally, much of the restive atmosphere in the Middle East has to do with economic woes, felt most acutely among the poor, which has been exacerbated by the global economic downturn and the meteoric rise in food prices. These conditions also exists in Bahrain to some extent, but economic hardship is also stratified between Sunnis and Shiites, where the former tends to live a more comfortable, modern lifestyle. Not surprisingly, the anti-government opposition in Bahrain is primarily comprised of the less well-off majority-Shiite population. Sunnis, on the other hand, are supportive of the monarchy, and are skeptical about where blame for Shiite grievances truly lies.

In an interview with The New York Times, several Sunni Bahrainis, supportive of the monarchy, pointed to the Shiite culture, not the government, as the reason that Shia economic mobility was lacking. Having too many children, cutting short their education, and demanding handouts from the government, were cited as the sources of Shiite adversity. The interviewees also expressed fears that their freedoms would be taken away if Shiites were to come to power, and worried that they would align the country with Iran and impose harsh religious restrictions . “To me, it’s about preserving my freedoms,” one Sunni woman told the Times.

In fact, there is much reason to be concerned. In an effort to mimic the scene in Cairo’s Tahrir Squre, protester’s gathered Thursday in the country’s capital, Manama, calling their encampment “Martyrs’ Squre.” After leaving the Bahraini hospital of Salmanyah, where wounded or killed protesters were taken, the opposition movement called for the death of King Khalifa. The demonstrators claimed bloodshed only motivated them to fight back even more. However, this only scratches the surface.

In response to the government’s violent repression of the protesters, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged more restraint and reportedly discussed “political and economic reform efforts to respond to the citizens of Bahrain.” But we have already been down this road before. Pressure for governmental reform in Bahrain had been mounting since the 1990s. After succeeding his father in 1999, King Hamad instituted a number of democratic reforms, including restoring the parliament which had been disbanded for 27 years. He released Shiite political prisoners, and instituted constitutional reforms. The result? A powerful Islamist Shia party, al-Wefaq, became the single largest political party in Bahrain; many of its leaders were released from prison or brought back from exile from Hamad’s reforms. By 2006, the Islamists had secured nearly half (18) of the 40 seats in the Bahraini parliament.

Since coming to power, al-Wefaq has called for racial segregation of South Asian residents of Bahrain, who were being harassed by Bahraini nationals. This was viewed as the best way to “deal with” the racial tension between the two ethnic groups. Steven Cook, a fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations, has called the group’s position on women “outrageous.” “In fact,” he continued, “one of the leaders of Al Wefaq wanted to pass a law such that windows in Bahraini apartment buildings— [so] you could not see out” (emphasis added).

Outrageous is putting it kindly. Al Wefaqbelieves that all legal changes regarding the role of women and the family should be made by clerics, because they are religious matters. It has organized large campaigns against secular women’s rights movements. As recently as 2009, the party rejected a law that would set the minimum age of marriage for women at 15, claiming that it was “against the principles of Islam.” The outrages go on and on.

To be sure, secular and liberal reformers do exist in Bahrain, but as in Egypt and numerous other countries in the region, they comprise a much smaller percentage of the “pro-democracy” constituency, and only facilitate hardline Islamists in making huge political gains. In Egypt, after Mubarak instituted multiparty elections in 2005, the opposition movement (which had much the same composition as the 2011 opposition movement) enabled the Muslim Brotherhood to go from 0-88 seats in the Egyptian parliament, making it the second largest political party in the country. Other reformers gained only half as many seats. This is to say nothing of the numerous other democratic movements in the region that have produced the very same results. With every introduction of democratic reforms, the outcome is always the same: more instability, more bellicosity, and more power for the Islamists.

Why? Cook explained the phenomenon precisely:

[I]n Bahrain, there’s been a degree of collaboration between Al Wefaq and the secular opposition—the old Ba’athists, the old communists and other people who just consider themselves democrats—where they work together, but the political reality is quite different. The secular opposition is beholden to Al Wefaq because they represent 65 percent of the population. And you know, at the end of the day, they’re willing to give up women’s issues when it comes to political reform in the constitution. Whatever their big goals are, they realize that this is complicated.

The same is true for Egypt, Lebanon, the Gaza Strip, and so on. The sad truth is that the freedom agenda in the Muslim world is lost in a larger, popularly supported fascist movement. It seeks to impose a monolithic theocracy that denies the most basic human rights to its citizens. And for all it’s lip service to democracy and freedom, it is anathema to both.

Thus, the paradox of democracy in the the Middle East is really not as difficult as it may seem. It arises from a naive conflation of “democracy” and “freedom.” While it’s true that America should support free, civil societies, which do tend to engender global peace, not every populist movement is a free movement. Many — if not most — of the so-called “democratic” revolutions in the 20th century have been fascist movements, which have hijacked and perverted the lexicon of freedom. All of the Communists called their massacring police states “people’s democracies;” the theocracy of Iran, which executes Islamic deviants, was installed through another such “democratic revolution.” Don’t be fooled. Democracy for these movements is only a means. Not an end.

Original URL: http://frontpagemag.com/2011/02/18/if-we-lose-bahrain/?utm_source=FrontPage+Magazine&utm_campaign=773bdb9f70-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email

The news that 60 Minutes journalist Lara Logan had been brutally sexually assaulted and beaten in Egypt among chants of “Jew” really hit home. As a teenager and young woman in Egypt, I remember having to endure the humiliation of being pinched and groped in crowded buses and streets of Cairo. Onlookers are usually indifferent, some even laugh, leaving women in Muslim society even more ashamed of their bodies. Women who do not wear Islamic clothes, such as Christians and foreigners, are even more vulnerable. In Cairo, hearing a passing car yelling the “f” word or “whore” to a woman and then speeding up in the busy traffic is not uncommon.

In times of uprisings and revolutions, it is not uncommon for the mob mentality to take over, resulting in assaults and even killing of journalists. But what happened to journalists in Egypt, including Logan, was an outrageous violation of police duty; instead of helping the foreign victims, the police added to the abuse by hours of unnecessary and abusive interrogation of the victims themselves.

Egypt and many Muslim countries have a terrible record of sexual harassment. According to a survey conducted in 2008 by an Egyptian Women’s rights group, 83% of Egyptian women have been sexually harassed. The numbers for foreign women is a staggering 98%. Most of the men in the survey admitted they have harassed women and most of them blamed it on women for dressing provocatively. What is worse is that the majority of women in the survey believe that women who dress immodestly deserve the harassment.

Muslim culture has succeeded in turning women against each other and away from defending their human rights and dignity. The system rewards women who turn on other women who do not follow Sharia. A Muslim woman is given her much-craved respect only when she reports and condemns immodest women, turns against her sisters and agrees with a misogynist culture that blames the female victims and not the predators.

It was also reported that crowds yelled “Jew” at Logan. That does not surprise me, since a call that someone is a Jew has a meaning in Muslim countries. It means they are fair game for assault or worse; it means they are subhuman and deserve whatever happens to them. Muslim scriptures are full of commandments to kill Jews wherever they are and according to Islamic law, female captives in battle are automatically divorced from their husbands and can be sexually enslaved by their captors. Mohammed himself, who is viewed as the ideal example for men, in all his battles against non-Muslims allowed sexual enslavement of women captives. Such Islamic history lessons send the wrong message to Muslim men and influence how they view and relate to women and take away any feeling of guilt or shame.

From birth, Muslim boys are excused and defended for misbehaving towards their sisters and women in general. The message is that uncovered women are to be loathed and disrespected. Muslim preachers often rush to blame women as having “asked for it” or being “uncovered meat”. Even in Australia, an Egyptian Muslim preacher, Sheik al-Hilali, used the “uncovered meat” excuse to defend Muslim men who raped Australian women wearing bikinis on the beach. These kind of religious teachings are the reason behind honor killing, female genital mutilation and abuse, all of which are designed to tame women and set an example to the rest of society.

The anti-Jewish propaganda in Muslim countries is sickening and must be seen in relation to female abuse in general and to the assault of Logan in particular. Even I who was born and raised Egyptian once had a scary experience. On the way to Alexandria, an uncle wanted to stop in a village to meet a friend but got lost. As he went to look for directions, my siblings and I, who were wearing jeans and T-shirts and speaking English, attracted a village crowd around us yelling “Jews.” My sisters and I rushed inside the car. In no time the village police came to check us out but thank God by then my uncle showed them his ID and we left after some questioning. I can only imagine how Jews feel walking the street in any Muslim country.

Egyptian paranoid propaganda against Westerners and Jews is not only manifested in streets but affects every aspect of relationships between the ordinary Egyptian and foreigners in general. Foreign women are often called “Israeli agents” who are coming to ‘seduce’ Egyptian men. As to foreign men, they are often accused of being – what else? – CIA agents.

Many Egyptians describe the behavior of men who sexually harass women as un-Islamic and they believe this is a good enough explanation to end the conversation. They refuse to look within and see the truth behind the Islamic upbringing of men, how women are viewed both culturally and religiously and how Islamic teachings views non-Muslims. Muslims need to view themselves and the reality of their religious education more critically. Living in denial about one’s religion and the consequences of its teachings is toxic.

Original URL: http://frontpagemag.com/2011/02/18/islams-uncovered-meat-excuse-for-sexual-assault/?utm_source=FrontPage+Magazine&utm_campaign=773bdb9f70-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email

Nonie Darwish is the author “Cruel and usual Punishment” and the President of FormerMuslimsUnited.org.

Diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks provide another reminder that al-Qaida remains committed to obtaining weapons of mass destruction (WMD) - nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and "dirty bombs." Security briefing cables published by the London Telegraph – some as recent as 2009 – state that jihadists are close to making "workable and efficient biological and chemical weapons" capable of killing thousands of people if used to attack the West.

The cables indicate that Western officials are very concerned about the possibility that terrorists may obtain WMD material through Pakistan. During official talks in London in 2009, British officials raised "deep concerns" that a rogue scientist in that Pakistan's nuclear program "could gradually smuggle enough material out to make a weapon." British officials also believe that "extremists" could use Pakistani agricultural supplies of anthrax, avian flu and foot-and-mouth disease to develop biological weapons.

Much of Washington's effort to prevent biological agents from falling into terrorist hands occurs through the State Department's Biosecurity Engagement Program. One cable sent by a senior U.S. diplomat in Islamabad said that in 2007, "virtually no biosecurity measures" were observed during two visits to the Pakistan Agricultural Research Center, which houses anthrax, foot-and-mouth diseases, avian influenza and brucellosis. The cable says that by February 2008, security practices had improved and "dedicated safety officers" were in place, but provides no detail.

At a Jan. 28, 2009 meeting of the North Atlantic Council, NATO's top decision-making body, "Terrorist acquisition of WMD was the next topic of major concern," according to one cable. It said that although al-Qaida and other jihadists were thought have a limited capability to acquire WMD, "the intent was clearly present, and there were ongoing credible reports of attempts to recruit the needed expertise. A 'dirty' radiological IED [improvised explosive device] program was thought to be under active consideration by al-Qaeda."

Other cables revealed that documents found in Afghanistan in 2007 showed that the terror group had made greater progress in bioterrorism than was previously realized. A senior State Department official warned that the growth of the biotechnology industry, particularly in Indonesia, could make biological weapons more available to jihadists. In June 2008, India's national security adviser told two U.S. senators that terrorists had made a "manifest attempt to obtain fissile material" and "have the technical competence to manufacture an explosive device beyond a mere dirty bomb."

A recent issue of Inspire magazine, published by al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), provides tips for American Muslims on the use of chemical and chemical and biological weapons. Inspire contributor Yahya Ibrahim discussed the subject in an article entitled "The Ultimate Mowing Machine," a primer on innovative ways to "Mow Down the Enemies of Allah."

"America is a terrorist state and Americans are complacent [sic] in some of the worst forms of terrorism our Muslim nation has been subjected to," Ibrahim writes. "Millions of Muslim lives have been lost to American brutality. It is about time Muslims wake up and pay back America what is due to it."

The article is part of a section of the magazine called "Open Source Jihad," which gives readers ideas on ways to carry out terrorist attacks.

According to Ibrahim, a skilled microbiologist could produce the deadly botulin toxin, which could result in "hundreds if not thousands of casualties." Such an attack could require years of planning, but would be "worth the wait."

"Brothers with less experience in the fields of microbiology or chemistry, as long as they possess basic scientific knowledge, would be able to develop other poisons such as Ricin or Cyanide," he writes, adding that the subject of using weapons of mass destruction against the United States will be discussed in upcoming issues of Inspire.

After the magazine was published, the FBI's "WMD Operations Unit 1" sent this memorandum to state and local law enforcement officials warning them about the article.

Obtaining weapons of mass destruction is a long-standing al-Qaida goal. In a forthcoming research report, former CIA officer Rolf Mowatt-Larson outlines al-Qaida's history of pursuing WMD and its religious arguments supporting nuclear terrorism. Mowatt-Larson, currently a senior fellow at Harvard's Kennedy School, writes that Jamal al-Fadl, who defected from al-Qaida in 1996 and became a source for the FBI and CIA, testified that the organization tried to acquire uranium in the early and mid-1990s while based in Sudan.

In 2002, the CIA made public information on gruesome experiments testing cyanide, sarin and other toxins on animals. The following year, Jemaah Islamiya's chief Hambali was captured. He provided interrogators with confirmation of his own role in al-Qaida's anthrax efforts. In 2008, Zawahiri published a fatwa justifying the use of WMD.

"The bottom line…is clear: al Qaeda and its network have been determined to acquire WMD," Mowatt-Larson writes. "Organizing a coherent strategy to prevent this nightmare from occurring begins with a clear recognition that WMD terrorism is a real and imminent threat."

Original URL: http://www.investigativeproject.org/2608/documents-show-jihadists-seek-mass-destruction

Though Dutch MP Geert Wilders warns that "the lights are going out all over Europe," the proverbial light bulbs have been clicking on above the heads of European leaders regarding the negative impact of multicultural policies, which for years have encouraged separation rather than integration of the continent's Muslims. With the results of this approach — from no-go zones to niqabs — too obvious to ignore, Europe's three most influential statesmen have weighed in:

In October, Chancellor Angela Merkel declared that multiculturalism has "utterly failed" in Germany because too little has been asked of immigrants. It had been assumed that "people would live side by side and that it would sort itself out by itself," she later elaborated. "This turned out to be false." Immigrants must adopt the country's language and values, Merkel said, calling such demands the opposite of multiculturalism.

In February, Prime Minister David Cameron blasted the UK's doctrines of state multiculturalism. "We have encouraged different cultures to live separate lives, apart from each other and apart from the mainstream," he noted. "We've failed to provide a vision of society to which they feel they want to belong. We've even tolerated these segregated communities behaving in ways that run completely counter to our values."

Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, also chimed in this month. "My answer is clearly yes, it is a failure," he said of multiculturalism. "If you come to France, you accept to melt into a single community, which is the national community, and if you do not want to accept that, you cannot be welcome in France." Citing the need to protect core values, Sarkozy argued that "we have been too concerned about the identity of the person who was arriving and not enough about the identity of the country that was receiving him."

Less prominent European politicians, such as Prime Minister Yves Leterme of Belgium, now have joined the critics. Truly ahead of the curve was José Maria Aznar, the former Spanish prime minister, who cautioned that multiculturalism "divides and weakens societies" back in 2006.

As Daniel Pipes asserts, this trend of mainstream leaders acknowledging a problem so familiar to ordinary Europeans is cause for cheer. However, while he sees "anti-Islamist reaction growing even more quickly than the Islamist threat itself," Europe's tardy response means that there is much ground to make up against Islamism, with the final outcome far from certain.

It all begins with the necessary evolution in thinking outlined by David Cameron: today's neutral tolerance must give way to a "muscular liberalism" that "believes in certain values and actively promotes them."

Original URL:http://www.islamist-watch.org/blog/2011/02/europe-wakes-to-multiculturalism-epic-failure

Friday, February 18, 2011

If one were to confine their reading to progressive outposts, one could be forgiven for believing that a glorious new age of freedom and democracy is emerging in the Middle East. Yet while it is arguable that democracy, as represented by the overthrow of authoritarian regimes in Tunisia and Egypt, and ongoing unrest in Yemen, Algeria, Libya, Bahrain and Iran, may indeed be developing, the idea that freedom is an integral part of such developments is questionable at best. The “people’s triumph” as it was referred to by Anand Gopal in a column for The Nation, may yield a far less triumphant future, when short-term jubilation gives way to long-term reality.

As expected, while events are still be viewed through progressive, rose-colored glasses, the removal of despotic regimes in the Middle East accrues to Barack Obama’s credit. The “Bush Doctrine,” a central plank of which included the idea of establishing democracies in the region to combat terror, is dismissed by Nation columnist Ari Berman as a “messianic, barrel-of-a-gun foreign policy,” which pales by comparison to the “grassroots, bottom-up spirit of the Obama [presidential] campaign.” Mr. Berman extrapolates: “Would the Egyptian youth have taken to the streets during the invasion of Iraq? Only to denounce the imperialism and recklessness of the United States. It was only after the election of Barack Obama—and his repositioning of the United States as a friend to the Arab world, most notably during his visionary speech in Cairo in June 2009—that pro-democracy activists in Tehran and Cairo saw a friendly ally in the United States.”

Perhaps Mr. Berman’s memory is somewhat faulty. When Iranian protesters took to the streets to protest Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s stolen election–within days of Mr. Obama’s “visionary speech”–the president decided that “meddling” in Iranian affairs was a bridge too far. ”It is not productive, given the history of US and Iranian relations to be seen as meddling in Iranian elections,” he said. The president went further at a later time, explaining that ”[t]he difference between Ahmadinejad and [Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein] Mousavi, in terms of their actual policies, may not be as great as has been advertised.” Perhaps the president might explain how the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s most politically viable “opposition group,” whose slogan, ”Allah is our objective, the Prophet is our leader, the Koran is our law, jihad is our way, and dying in the way of Allah is our highest objective” represents a contrast “in actual policies” to the Mubarak regime.

And then there is the characterization of the Egyptian protesters themselves. Uri Aveny, writing for Counterpunch, described them as “non-violent, their demands were reasonable, their actions were spontaneous, they obviously expressed the feelings of the vast majority of the people. Without any organization to speak of, without leadership, they said and did all the right things.” Yet several news people covering the uprising were roughed up, including CNN’s Anderson Cooper, who claims he was beaten by “pro-Mubarak supporters.” Perhaps he was. Or perhaps not. As Cooper himself put it, ”There was no rhyme or reason to it—it was just people looking for a fight, looking to make a point, and punching us.” ABC’s Christiane Amanpour had her car surrounded by part of the mob. She reported that they said, ”We hate Americans.” And in a story which CBS News sat on for almost a week, it has been revealed that reporter Lara Logan, “covering the jubilation,” as CBS put it, was sexually assaulted by a mob of Egyptian men who beat her up badly enough to put her in a U.S. hospital, where her condition is described as “serious.” It was reported that the men were shouting, “Jew, Jew!” as the assault took place.

Why would CBS sit on a legitimate news story? CBS says Ms. Logan wanted to maintain her privacy. Yet CBS could have announced that one of their reporters in Egypt had been sexually assaulted without naming names. One suspects a mob of sexual predators with anti-Semitic tendencies conflicts with the prevailing characterization of “non-violent” and “reasonable” Egyptians. This reality doesn’t exactly validate the description given by New York Times columnist Tom Friedman, who wrote of a “Twitter-enabled Tahrir youth” that embodied “one the great triumphs of the human spirit.” Nor does it square with Huffington Post columnist Clarence B. Jones’ contention that the Egyptian uprising was “a massive eloquent validation of the moral force and power of non-violent civil disobedience” comparable to the “legacies of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.”

Yet reality itself is in play. Apparently drawing on the energy of the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, Iranian protesters are once again taking to the streets in another attempt to bring down the Islamic theocracy running their country. And despite the fact that the Obama administration took a pass in 2009 on arguably the greatest opportunity to engender real change in the Middle East, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton maintained that ”[o]ur message has been consistent and it remains the same. We wish the opposition and the brave people in the streets across cities in Iran, you know, the same opportunity that they saw their Egyptian counterpart seize in the last week.” Mrs. Clinton further claimed that the administration supports “the universal human rights of the Iranian people.”

Universal human rights? To use Mrs. Clinton’s own phrase, the idea that either she or the president have consistently supported universal human rights requires the “willing suspension of disbelief” that the Secretary herself expressed when the universal human rights of the Iraqi people were being supported by General David Petraeus and the Bush administration. Then, and even now, many of those on the left who criticized the removal of Saddam Hussein from power, which is more correctly characterized as the abandonment of freedom for stability, are unfazed by a double-standard of “consistency” which apparently necessitates Mrs. Clinton’s attempt to re-write history with regard to Iran. Perhaps progressives believe democratic and/or freedom movements should only be initiated by locals. This might partially explain why the “good war” in Afghanistan, the one they championed as a contrast to the “bad war” in Iraq, is no longer good.

Where is the Middle East headed? Islamist apologist Mark Levine offers a sobering, if somewhat inaccurate assessment in the Huffington Post: ”No one knew what the next days would bring, but everyone knew that they had been part of something incredible, which no one would be able to take away from them. After centuries of Ottoman, British, monarchical, and military rule, Egypt was free–at least for a night.”

Egypt is still being ruled by the military, Mr Levine. And as further nights give way to further days, the world will see whether the “incredible” uprisings taking place across the region give way to genuine democratic reforms, or if those reforms become nothing more than a stepping stone for Islamic jihadists to impose Sharia law across the entire region.

As this writer and others have noted, there is a vast difference between one man, one vote–and one man, one vote one time.

Original URL: http://frontpagemag.com/2011/02/17/egypt-from-the-left/

Arnold Ahlert is a contributing columnist to the conservative website JewishWorldReview.com.

[FrontPage Editor's note: The interview with Bill Warner below is reprinted from our Nov. 23, 2007 issue. The subject is Islamic theology's position on slavery and rape when it comes to kafirs (non-Muslims). Frontpage's editors thought it would be relevant in light of the vicious sex attack recently suffered by "60 Minutes" reporter Lara Logan at the hands of a mob in Egypt. It may not be insignificant that the perpetrators, as well as the supportive on-lookers, shouted "Jew! Jew!" during the assault.]

FP: Bill Warner, welcome back to Frontpage Magazine. This is the second part in our two-part series with you on the Center’s most recent book. In the first part we discussed Islam and its doctrine on the submission of women. In this second and final part we will discuss the matter of slavery. Welcome to Frontpage Interview.

Warner: It is a pleasure to work with Frontpage.

FP: So tell us in general where Islam stands on slavery.

Warner: Islam’s stand on slavery is based on its political principles of submission and duality. The principle of submission could not be clearer. By definition a slave is the most submissive of all people. You become a slave only when you have no more choices. A slave has completely submitted to a master.

The principle of duality is shown by the fact that Islam does not enslave Muslims, only kafirs (non-Muslims). Since only kafirs are enslaved, it assures that more of the world submits to Islam.

Islamic slavery is based on the Trilogy of the Koran, the Sira (Mohammed’s life) and the Hadith (the Traditions of Mohammed). All three texts say that slavery is permitted, ethical, desirable and a virtue. There is not one single negative word about slavery.

Slavery is seen as a process that brings kafirs to Islam. It is a virtue to free slaves, but Mohammed only freed slaves who submitted to Islam. If the kafir slave does not submit, then their children will. So given enough time, slaves convert to Islam. That is one of the reasons that Islam sees slavery as a positive.

Of course, there is another reason that Islam sees slavery as being so “good” and that is the money. Mohammed and the other jihadists made a fortune out of enslaving kafirs. Mohammed used the money for more jihad. So slavery financed the spread of Islam and jihad from the beginning.

FP: What were the ingredients of Mohammed’s own life in terms of slavery?

Warner: Mohammed is the perfect pattern for all humanity and his life was saturated in slavery. When his mother died, it was a freed slave who nursed him. His first wife owned slaves. One of his first converts was a slave. His closest friend, Abu Bakr, traded one of his black kafir slaves for a Muslim who was enslaved by a kafir.

But all of this was small change compared to his envolvement with slavery once he turned to jihad. In his first major battle at Badr, he stood by and prayed as his henchmen beat and tortured captured slaves to get information about the enemy kafirs.

Slaves made Mohammed’s pulpit. Slaves mended his cloths, cooked his food, and did every thing that a slave does for the master. He gave away slaves as gifts and received them as gifts. He went to war to kill the males so that the remaining people would surrender to be sold as slaves. Mohammed sold slaves on both the retail and wholesale markets.

He offered captured slaves their freedom if they would first agree that he was the prophet of Allah. A kafir slave then became a slave of Allah, because all Muslims are slaves of Allah. For a slave, the religion of Mohammed started and ended with slavery.

FP: Can you talk a bit about Islam and sexual slavery?

Warner: All morality in Islam is patterned after the example of Mohammed. Everything that he did and said defines what is permitted or “good”. Mohammed repeatedly sanctioned forced sex (rape) with kafir females after they were captured. The Hadith clearly reports that he got first choice of the women. In one case, he repeatedly demanded one particular woman for himself and swapped two other kafir slave women for his choice. So if Mohammed was involved in the rape of kafirs, then rape is a virtue, not a sin or error.

When Mohammed destroyed the B. Qurayza tribe, all of the adult male Jews were beheaded, so that no husbands were left. Mohammed then took the children and gave them to Muslims to raise as Muslims and he sold off the Jewish women as slaves.

We know from another story that the women were divided into sex slaves and domestic slaves. In one scene, a jihadist is trying to obtain a high ransom for a woman and he is told that her breasts are flat and her mouth is cold, so her value was less. In short, she was only good for work around the house, not in the bedroom.

The Hadith tells of another story where the Muslims used coitus interruptus to avoid impregnating the kafir sex slaves. The reason was purely for business. If the kafir sex slave was pregnant, then she was worth less money.

Islamic doctrine says that kafir women should not be used for prostitutes, only for the pleasure of the master.

When Mohammed attacked the Jews at Khaybar, many moral precedents were set. Sexual slavery received an entire set of rules. Muslims were not to rape pregnant or menstruating women until they had delivered the child or finished their periods. At Khaybar, Mohammed’s god Allah, announced that even married women were fair game for rape.

Mohammed only killed some of the Jews at Khaybar. The male and female survivors were needed to work the land as dhimmis. (The original dhimmis were semi-slaves with no civil rights. Today, dhimmis are ignorant kafirs who apologize for Islam.) Since Islam needed the men to work, husbands were left alive. That was the reason that the Koran said that in this case, even with the husbands looking on, it was good to rape the women.

Sexual slavery was not only fun and profitable for the Muslim men, but rape was a powerful tactic of war, then and today. The women are forced into submission to Muslim men and the husbands are humiliated. Humiliated men are weakened men, so more kafirs were less able to resist Islam.

For some time Mohammed’s favorite sex partner was a Christian slave from Egypt named Mary. One of Mohammed’s wives caught him in some state of intimacy with Mary in the wife’s bedroom and raised hell. Mohammed promised to not do it again and moved Mary to her own apartment in Medina.

Mohammed had received Mary and her sister as gifts. He gave her sister away to a Muslim poet. He was used to giving away sex slaves. He gave several of his top lieutenants kafir sex slaves. Umar, who later became caliph, gave his sex slave to his son. [As an aside, when he was caliph, his son got drunk and Umar beat him to death.]

FP: This institution of Islamic sexual slavery isn’t just a reality of the past is it?

Warner: Everything that has been said up to now is not only history; it is Sunna (the example of the perfect pattern of action and morality found in Mohammed). So today we don’t have a beautiful blonde Christian girl on the block in Mecca, but we have continuous and ongoing rapes by Muslims in kafir cities. This goes on everywhere that Islam goes because it is Sunna.

This is a continuous 1400-year history of jihad. In every detailed history that comes from the original documents from history, rape is a constant. You have to look in the original documents, since our historians refuse to report it in so-called history books.

Rape is Sunna. Rape is not a sin. Rape is permitted and encouraged by Mohammed and the Koran. Islam is the only political system in the world that includes rules for rape and war. Rape is jihad. How good can it get? A Muslim gets to rape a kafir girl and get heaven credits. All jihad is a ticket to Paradise.

The most disgusting aspect of the Islamic rape of kafirs is not the rapes, but the kafir response. Kafirs become dhimmis by ignoring the rapes. I challenge you to find one, even one, mention of Islamic rape in the history books.

Islamic rape is more taboo than the N-word in the media. At least the N-word is acknowledged to exist. Even unicorns exist in media fantasy. But Islamic rape is forbidden to even exist as a fantasy.

And to reach a fevered rant: our so-called “feminist” scholars are absolutely intellectually and morally bankrupt hypocrites. They are traitors to our culture and a shame and a disgrace. They remain silent in the face of heinous crimes against women. They are arch-dhimmis when they refuse to speak of the Sunna, history and current rapes of our daughters, mothers, and sisters.

And our tax dollars support their evil in our public universities.

FP: Mohammed was a white man and had black slaves, correct? Isn’t there a racism here? Where is all the leftist indignation against Islam on this issue?

Warner: The relationship between blacks and slavery is ironic. A standard approach of Islam to blacks is that Christianity is the religion of the white man and Islam is the natural religion of the black man. They add that Mohammed’s second convert was a black slave, Bilal, who was Mohammed’s companion and the first muezzin (the man who calls to prayer).

The Hadith, however, goes out of its way, many times, to tell the world that Mohammed was a white man. The Hadith also tells us the race of the kafirs that Mohammed enslaved. And Mohammed had many black slaves in his household. One of his slaves was a black man called, Anjasha.

Mohammed owned black slaves. It is that simple. His favorite wife, the child Aisha, had a black slave. But to be fair to Mohammed, he was not a racist about slavery. He enslaved Arabs, Africans, and Greeks. Islam enslaves all kafirs, independent of race.

Mohammed was politically incorrect about blacks and called them “raisin heads” in the Hadith. Thus it would be a compliment to call a black Muslim a “raisin head.” It would be Sunna and not offensive. Mohammed also said that Muslims are to obey the Islamic leader, “even if they were black.” A left-handed compliment, at best.

Mohammed used his robe to shield Aisha, so she could watch black slaves perform a martial arts routine in the mosque. The Hadith tells of a prophecy about a black man bringing evil to Islam. Black men were prophesized to destroy the Kabah.

But when Muslims preach to blacks they only say that Islam’s first muezzin was a black man. They don’t tell the rest of the story.

FP: Can you give us a brief synopsis of the history of Islamic slavery?

Warner: It all started with Mohammed and then went worldwide.

When Islam burst out of Arabia into the kafir world, they took the wealth and slaves. Slavery was an unapologetic part of jihad.

The Arabic language is a good place to see how important slavery was. In The Submission of Women and Slaves, we collected over 30 Arabic words that deal with slavery. We think that Arabic has more words for slaves than any other language.

Both a black African and a black slave have the same name, abd. The historical reason for this is that African slavery was so important to Islamic economics. Language reflects history. Islamic legal history is filled with the complaints by African Muslim jurists about how Arabic Muslim slave traders captured African Muslims and sold them on the auction block.

History records around 11,000,000 Africans being sent to the Americas and about 13,000,000 being sent to Islamic countries for a total of 24,000,000 African slaves. To get one slave, many others have to be killed for the tribe to surrender to enslavement. The old, sick and children are left behind to starve. These collateral deaths are conservatively estimated to about 5 to 1. So that implies that over 1400 years, 120,000,000 million Africans have been killed to furnish Islam with its profits.

The accepted history of race in the U.S. is that white men captured Africans, brought them to the U.S. and sold them as slaves. This is wrong. When the white slavers showed up on the west coast of Africa, they didn’t capture Africans. They looked them over in the pens, gave the Muslim slave traders their money, took their bills of sale, and loaded their purchases into their boats.

The Muslims had been plying the trade of war, capture, enslavement, and sale for a thousand years. Mohammed was a slave trader. Long after the white slave traders quit, the Muslims continued their African slave trade. It still exists today.

And to put a fine point on it, many African slaves were castrated by removing both testicles and penis. Castrated slaves brought more on the slave block. Castrated blacks were the traditional keepers of Mohammed’s mosque in Medina.

African slaves were called abd; white slaves were called mamluk. Most black slaves were used in mining and heavy fieldwork. White slaves were used more for skilled trades. White slaves were even promoted to leadership positions, if they converted. Only one black slave was promoted to leadership. He ruled Egypt and was a eunuch.

Over a million white slaves were taken from Europe. Our word, slave, comes from Slav. A white woman was the highest price slave for 1400 years on the Meccan auction block. The Muslim who could not afford a white sex slave choose an Ethiopian woman at a third of the price.

The most revolting enslavement of whites was how Turkish Muslims took as a tax, one out of five Christian children in Islamic ruled Eastern Europe. These male children were taken back to Turkey where they became the janissaries, elite soldiers for the sultan. The Turkish sultans did not trust tribal Muslims to be the elite palace guards, since they all harbored ancient tribal rivalries. We see the same distrust of Muslim tribal politics in Afghanistan, where kafirs are used as presidential guards.

The Hindus were enslaved, but we don’t have the number. We do know that jihad took half of ancient Hindustan and killed 80,000,000 Hindus. We have accountings of Hindus being enslaved by the hundreds of thousands at a time.

Muslims enslave everyone, but no one enslaves Muslims. This knowledge is part of Islam’s arrogance and superiority. They know the history; it is the dhimmis (kafir apologists) who are ignorant of the doctrine and history of Islamic slavery.

Warner: The enslavement of Africans is happening today. The only reason that Islam stopped enslaving whites and Hindus is that Islam is too weak to resist the social pressure. The Sunna of slavery has not changed, just the ability to use their law.

In the African countryside Muslims are still using jihad to enrich themselves. I have spoken with a Sudanese slave who escaped. The Muslims killed his parents and took him and his sister. Each night the jihadists gang raped his sister. Remember, rape is Sunna.

When he met his new masters, they put him in the middle of a circle of the family and each beat him with a stick. He was told that his new name was Abd, black slave. He slept in the barn with the animals.

Our media and intellectuals are quick to punish the slightest insult by a white against a black man, but they have not the slightest recognition of murder, rape and enslavement of blacks by Islam. Our media and intellectuals are dhimmis.

FP: Final thoughts and comments?

Warner: Slavery is the fruit of Islamic duality. Mohammed, the master of dualism and submission, used slavery as a tool of jihad because it worked. Mohammed’s life was infused with slavery. Slaves were the lifeblood of Islam. Mohammed, the white man, owned both male and female black slaves. His attitude was pure dualism.

The most disgusting thing about Islamic slavery is not that Muslims enslave others, but that we ignore it. The Muslims have been fed the Koran and the Sunna in their mother’s milk. They are doing what is ethical according to Islam. In a strange way, Muslims are to be pitied. A Muslim is the first victim of Islam.

The criticism of whites because of their being involved in slavery is standard fair in the media and the universities. Try to find a university that even teaches about the killing of 120,000,000 Africans for Muslims to profit from the 24,000,000 slaves.

Blacks define themselves on the basis of slavery. They will not go beyond the white, Christian version of slavery. There is only one theory of history in the black community—the West African Limited Edition version of history. Blacks will not admit the broad scope of slave history. Hindu slavery? It never happened. White and European slavery? It never happened. Slavery on the East coast of Africa? It never happened. A massive slave trade through the Sahara into North Africa? It never happened. Black, eunuchs at the Medina mosque? It never happened. This incomplete history of slavery is what the taxpayers fund in the state universities.

How can black leaders ignore Islam’s sacred violence in Africa? Why aren’t the black columnists, writers, professors, or ministers speaking out? They are ignorant and in total denial. They are the molested children of Islam.

Blacks are dhimmis and serve Islam with their silence. There is a deep fear of Islam that makes them overlook and placate Islam. Arabs are the masters of blacks.

One thing whites and blacks have in common is that their ancestors were enslaved by Islam, and both are too ignorant to know it. Blacks and whites have a secret shame buried under the denial of being slaves inside Islam.

But the rest of the media and intellectuals line up as dhimmis, too. One of the marks of a dhimmi under the fourth caliph, Umar, was that a dhimmi was forbidden to study the Koran. The chief mark of dhimmitude today is ignorance of the Koran, the Sira and the Hadith. The ignorance of kafir intellectuals about Islam is profound.

They don’t know about how jihad killed the 120,000,000 Africans, the 60,000,000 Christians, the 80,000,000 Hindus or the 10,000,000 Buddhists. Our intellectuals do not know about the Tears of Jihad (detailed in all of our books). That is a lot of death and ignorance—270,000,000 dead. Our intellectuals don’t know, don’t care and don’t bother. They deny.

University Islamic studies never mention the Islamic political doctrine. The media discusses Islam in terms of political correctness, and multiculturalism. History courses don’t teach about the civilizational annihilation due to jihad. Religious leaders placate imams in public gatherings and have no knowledge what the imam actually thinks of them. Political thinkers do not even know Islam as a political force

The problem with this ignorance is that our intellectuals are unable to help us. They do not understand that Islam is a civilization based upon the ideal of dualism. Islamic ethics and politics have one set of rules for Muslims and another for kafirs. Our civilization is based upon the ideal of unitary ethics, the Golden Rule. We do not have two sets of laws and ethics, like Islam. Our intellectuals cannot explain what dualism has meant in the past or what it will mean for our future—civilizational annihilation.

Our intellectuals and the media have only one view of Islam—a glorious civilization. They have created the “terrorist”, a bogus term based upon ignorance. And the “terrorist” is not even a “real” Muslim, but an extremist fundamentalist. All of these terms are based upon a profound ignorance of Islamic political doctrine.

Intellectuals cannot connect the dots of persecution of other intellectuals and artists today, such as Salman Rushdie, Theo van Gogh, the Mohammed cartoon riots, and Daniel Pearl. Their persecution is part of a 1400 year Islamic tradition of keeping all intellectuals and artists in line with the doctrine of political Islam. But for our intellectuals, there is no history, no connection, no pattern, no doctrine of Islam. Their only doctrine is the doctrine of denial. These intellectuals write our textbooks. Then our tax dollars buy the books to feed the ignorance.

What explains the intellectuals’ silence and ignorance? The enormous violence of jihad has produced the psychology of the “molested child” syndrome. Intellectuals fear, apologize for, and placate the Islamic abusers, ignoring the violence of the past. Then they turn around and advise our politicians. The result is an ignorant populace who look to our intellectuals for guidance and find treachery and lies.

FP: Bill Warner, thank you for joining us.

Warner: Thank you for standing against political Islam.

Original URL: http://frontpagemag.com/2011/02/17/islam-and-the-brutal-sex-assault-of-lara-logan/